A woman claims to have been kicked off a Freedom-operated Delta flight for not accepting a blanket offered by a flight attendant. The attendant asked the breastfeeding mother sitting on the next to last row in the window seat next to her husband to cover up. The mother declined, saying she had the legal right to breastfeed her child. She and her family were ordered off the plane.

Freedom spokesman Paul Skellon offered, “A breast-feeding mother is perfectly acceptable on an aircraft, providing she is feeding the child in a discreet way. She was asked to use a blanket just to provide a little more discretion, she was given a blanket, and she refused to use it, and that’s all I know.” Uh, Paul? You also know the woman and her family were ordered off the plane.

Too bad none of the terrorists from the flights of 9/11 were breastfeeding moms; then we’d be reading a different chapter in our history books, eh?

I thought my take on this was pretty cynical until I read some of the comments on the article.

If the attendant had to offer her a blanket she was obviously showing things that others did not want to observe.

Boy, that is no kidding. Let’s hear it for blankets! I don’t want to see the mole that woman refuses to have removed, the vulgar tattoo on his forearm, the hook-nosed lady over there, his fat ass, her anorexic ass, his combover, or anyone’s glaring lack of fashion sense. And what in the hell is up with the people who seem to have no idea they’re leaving a trail of dandruff behind that would rival the contents of a large snow globe? I understand I’m seven rows apart from these people and can only see them if I’m in their vicinity, looking at them, and became suddenly incapable of looking the other way. Still, can’t we all just get a blanket?

I think this incident might have been more of a safety issue. After 9/11 flight attendants are more concerned with safety and if any passenger makes them feel uncomfortable or a passenger seems to not want to comply with the flight attendant’s request, often they will be asked to leave the plane if it has not left the gate. Maybe that flight attendant felt threatened by the women or felt she could cause trouble later in the flight.

That would make an interesting public service announcement:
Breastfeeding – Safety First! It’s time to fly – do you know where your breasts are?

We all have genitals, too. Should we bare them in public? We all have anuses, but it’s rude to shove them in other people’s faces. This woman wasn’t kicked off for breast-feeding her baby. She was offered a blanket so she could continue doing that discreetly.

Breasts are genitals? Surely that’s not what this person is saying. No. I won’t even consider someone who is tech-savvy enough to get a comment on a website could be that anatomically ignorant. I mean, c’mon. We don’t all have computers, but we do all have bodies. Maybe the person meant breasts are comparable to genitals. I’m all for a law that mandates the covering of every breast shown in public. This law would of course cover (no pun intended) the breasts of every man, specifically those men whose breasts are bigger than mine. That’s right, I’m jealous! Even though they have the legal right to showcase those swayin’ beauts, I have the legal right not to see them. Those flat-chested men with their hairy nipples — they’re outa here, too!

She preferred to flaunt her “legal right” to bare her breast in public, and it was this combative attitude and unwillingness to comply with a flight attendent’s instructions that got her kicked off.

You flaunt that legal right, girlfriend! Can you get thrown off a plane for shouting, “Where’s that damned voting booth?”

The woman had a prior plan to sue Delta for this. Otherwise, why would she have 22-month-old nursing and refuse a blanket?

Oh, it was a conspiracy. Quick, someone call Kevin Costner. Who wants the movie rights, you?

It seems to me that before everyone condemns Delta for doing this “terrible, terrible” thing to this poor mother, that everyone should remember that only one side of the story has been aired. Of course, the mother is going to say she was discreet etc. ect. And maybe that was the case. If so, Delta ought to be ashamed.

However, there’s a very real possibility that the whole story is not being told here. My point is that, while on the surface, it seems a clear cut case of really poor judgment on Delta’s part, it’s also very possible that there is another side of things that would explain Delta’s actions more fully. She may have been removed for other more valid reasons, but chose to state it was due to the breastfeeding. That’s what people do….put themselves in the best possible light. And what is in the press is seldom accurate or the whole story. It seems very strange to me that Delta would take such an extreme action without more reason.

Ahem. Is this thing on? On behalf of Delta, I’d like to prattle on endlessly in full support of Delta even though I wasn’t there and even though I only heard one side of the story (and it wasn’t Delta’s). I want to suggest that perhaps she did something besides flaunt her boob and that it was this other thing that got her kicked off. Further, I think Delta isn’t saying the real reason because that’s their prerogative, so I’m saying for them – whatever they would say if they, you know, said. No, I’m not a Delta employee vying for a promotion or the CEO’s bootlicker or a stockholder who hopes like all holy hell that this doesn’t put Delta under. I’m just a person with an opinion, even if that opinion has no basis in fact of any kind. Go Delta!

If she did not want to comply with accepting the blanket, then she set herself up to be removed from the airline.

When flying with my very young babies, I tried to make arrangements for flying time that did not include having to breast-feed during flight time. Like: feeding and changing them before flight times, not waiting until the plane was ‘going to take off’! It was much easier for me and my babies and perhaps this mother should have considered this.

As a mother who has flown with two very young babies I was breastfeeding, I would like to say, “Amen, Sister!” I too have anal-retentively controlled my children from the womb so that there are no surprises, no getting caught off guard, none of that ill-timed takin’ care of business like wetting or pooping, getting hungry or thirsty, crying or cooing – not when I’m trying to maintain my dignity!

Breasts arouse sexual feelings in men and sometimes other women, and THAT is why there ought to be discretion.

New, from Parker Brothers! Discretion, the game that makes you think you’ve won when really you haven’t. What it takes to win or lose is determined by the other players’ interpretation of the rules! When it’s your turn to roll, you too might get to decide who can and can’t use their legal right to behave a certain way and then impose arbitrary restrictions with the use of overused terms whose definitions you clearly don’t understand!

Check it. How someone looks does not make him or her responsible for how you feel or even what you do. Now get back in your time machine. 1950 misses you.

You’re getting one side of the story here. In this day and age, does ejecting a woman for discreetly breastfeeding in the back of a plane make any sense? Even Delta isn’t that stupid. My guess is that there is a lot more to this story.

Oooh! Another Paul Harvey-wanna-be with “the rest of the story.” Where are those Delta spokespersons, anyway? Did that unsafe, unsecured, boob-flashing, child-feeding imp of Satan lock them all up in her nursery?

Oh, c’mon. That would make a killer ending to “the rest of the story” and you know it!

My mother is no longer with us, having had breast cancer and a radical mastectomy in 1970 that left her horribly scarred from belly to underarm and all points in between. I’m more than willing to pass along her thoughts about those opposed to the public show of a breast that’s breastfeeding, specifically those she regarded as the self-righteous, holier-than-thou types.

“Honey, these are the same people who would have a cow if they saw a woman with a double-mastectomy sunbathing topless in her own backyard. It’s not what they see or even what they think they see. It’s all about them and their dirty, filthy little minds that wouldn’t know a teat from a tater tot, but damned if they wouldn’t march on Washington to outlaw potatoes if they thought it would help.”

About Diana Hartman

Diana is a USMC (ret.) spouse, mother of three and a Wichita, Kansas native. She is back in the United States after 10 years in Germany. She is a contributing author to Holiday Writes. She hates liver & motivational speakers. She loves science & naps.

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